Transition of DigiDelivery central site services scheduled for January 24-25, 2009

Chris Markle here from Aspera... This message is being sent to all DigiDelivery Administrators regarding the upcoming transition of the DigiDelivery central services from Digidesign to Aspera. The actual transition will occur sometime during the weekend of January 24-25, 2009. We'll provide a more concrete timeframe later next week.

* * *

This note contains important information about upcoming changes in the DigiDelivery world and asks you to do some things on your end to prepare for those changes. Please read this message in its entirety to help avoid any interruptions to your DigiDelivery-based operations.

Aspera will soon be transitioning the DigiDelivery Central Site services from Digidesign over to us. That cutover is scheduled for the weekend of January 24-25, 2009. We will be sending another notice in about a week and a final notice two (2) working days from the actual cutover date.

There are two (2) things you need to do prior to this cutover to ensure that this transition does not affect your file transfer operations:

1. Update the server software in your DigiDelivery unit(s)

After the transition, servers that are running server software version 2.1.3 or earlier will no longer be able to contact the central site for any purpose other than to update the server software to a more current version. This means that other things that require the services of the central site, primarily Server-to-Server relay, will no longer work.

To avoid any interruptions to your DigiDelivery services, please use the “Check for Software Updates” link in the DigiDelivery administration interface to update your server software to the current 2.2.1 version. If you have more than one server, remember to do this for each.

2. Update the client software for certain users

While we recommend that all users update their client software, this update is required for some of your users.

DigiDelivery client users that are on the same network as your DigiDelivery server (generally in the same office), and that are receiving deliveries from the server, will require updates to their client software in order for their receive operations to continue to run at the higher speeds of your local network. If the affected users do not upgrade to 2.1.1, their receive operations will be directed to the external IP address of your DigiDelivery server and will either: a) run slower; or b) fail completely if the server's external IP address is not accessible from your internal network.

Your users on other networks can continue to use the earlier 2.1 version of the client. As well, clients that only post (upload) to DigiDelivery servers, including from the same local network, can continue to use the older 2.1 client. This 2.1.1 release applies specifically to LOCAL users who RECEIVE deliveries.

If you are unsure of which case applies to you or your users, we recommend upgrading to this new version (2.1.1) since the updated client will work with the current central site as well. The update can be made at any time before the cutover.

We have also enabled a facility that will notify your 2.1 client users of the update. The notification check will occur whenever they start their 2.1 client. If they reply OK to this notification, they will redirected to Aspera’s download web site where they can download and install the 2.1.1 client. Their 2.1 client will still be running if they elect to just return to it and use it as-is. They will also be able to check a box in the notification that will tell the system to no longer remind them of this newer update. And obviously if they install the 2.1.1 update then to notifications will stop.

NOTE: Effective with this release, Mac OS9 is no longer supported. Macs running OS9 will have to remain on the older client (with the associated issues noted above) or have an OS upgrade to a supported OS X release.

If you and your users get ready by doing these two things, then you all should be unaffected by the cutover process.

If you have any questions about this, please contact Aspera Technical Support at support@asperasoft.com. Out support team will take questions on this specific topic whether or not you have a support agreement with us.

Thank you for your continued support of DigiDelivery.
The DigiDelivery Support Team